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Publication History:

Unlike most theologians of his age, Martin Bucer had a wide range of vision with respect to European affairs: In addition to his contacts within Alsace and Germany, he established relations with almost every country on the Continent. It was his ecumenical attitude that always led him to mediate between the parties in the religious battles of his time. His deep commitment and his objective to reach an agreement can be traced in all his activities, works and letters.
As Bucer did not found a religious denomination himself, his theological and historical importance has been underestimated for a long time. In addition his handwriting is hard to decipher, which makes it difficult to deal with his works, especially with his letters.
Bucer's letters (BCor) have been published in chronological order as part of the "Opera omnia" since 1979 (Leiden, Brill, I: 1979; II: 1989; III: 1995; IV: 2000). Since the editor, Jean Rott (Strasbourg), died Bucer's correspondence has been edited in Erlangen. This academic edition of source material will provide future research with a broad basis for significant aspects of Reformation history about which very little is known.

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This present work of nine chapters portrays iconoclastic trends within Western Christianity from the early Middle Ages up to the time of the French Revolution. The primary intent of this work is an explanation of the important iconoclastic movements - their origins and their theoretical foundations and motives. Parallel to this, the book deals with the religious and theological justification of the iconographic cult and of the icon in sacred architecture both in the formal theological teachings of schools and universities and in the arena of popular pietism.
The areas of concentration are: iconographic controversy in the Carolingian Period, iconoclasm in the context of the Cistercian monastery reform, the icon in Franciscan thought, Reformation iconoclasm, the meaning of the icon in Tridentine Catholicism. Included in this is an in-depth interpretation of the religious iconography of numerous images and image cycles, including the principal works of Tintoretto and El Greco.

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By proclaiming an earthly stage of bliss attributed to the Holy Spirit, Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202) fostered ideas of the Millennium and progression in history. His Trinitarian hermeneutics provided him with new insights to the Scriptures through which he viewed the history of salvation, prefigured in the Seven Seals of the Apocalypse. Joachim’s treatise,
De septem sigillis, edited for the first time from the complete corpus of manuscript evidence, outlines God's plan from the First Seal to the coming of Antichrist and the Last Judgment. This volume explains how deeply rooted in medieval exegesis and eschatology Joachim's concept of the Seals was. It introduces him as scholar and visionary, traditionalist and innovator, and as one of the most exciting witnesses to the Twelfth-Century Renaissance.